On June 7, the winner of ATL Challenge was announced at the first quarterly Atlanta Regional Housing Forum of 2017. Tapestry Development Group was selected as the winner based on its proposal to address a major challenge for the owners of affordable multi-family homes: how to pay for improvements and still keep these homes affordable. Tapestry’s innovative approach would enable property owners to access low-interest funds for moderate rehabilitation and provide construction management services in exchange for locking in the current affordability levels during the loan repayment period. These properties serve residents at or below 80 percent of the Atlanta area median income (AMI), or roughly $48,000.

“There is a significant and growing need for affordable housing in Atlanta and across Georgia,” said Meaghan Shannon-Vlkovic, vice president and Southeast market leader, Enterprise. “A critical element in addressing this need will be preserving the affordable homes that already exist. Tapestry Development Group has proposed an innovative, efficient idea to do just that. I look forward to watching their proposal come to life and help working people enjoy affordable homes.”

Tapestry was one of three finalists were selected in January to receive $10,000 to further develop their proposals, and will receive $70,000 to support implementation. The ATL Challenge and the award funds are made possible through the generous support of the JP Morgan Chase Foundation.

“We are honored to be selected as the winner of the Atlanta Affordable Housing Preservation Challenge,” said Jon Toppen, managing principal, Tapestry Development Group. “We focused on developing best practices through case study analysis of existing moderate rehabilitation programs and addressing the challenges owners of smaller properties often face integrated this critical research into our final proposal which we look forward to implementing with the award’s support.”

Since the announcement of the finalists for Atlanta’s Affordable Housing Preservation Challenge (ATL Challenge) in January, Tapestry Development Group, Tristar, and Stryant Investments have been working to conduct due diligence, engage stakeholders, and otherwise move their proposals from “idea” toward “implementation.” Final proposals will be submitted in early May, and the overall winner of the ATL Challenge will be announced later that month.

Last week, we ran a series of blog posts so each finalist can make the case for their proposal – in their own words. They detailed the specific affordable housing preservation needs they plan to address, potential barriers, and how their proposal will strengthen the affordable housing preservation “infrastructure” of the Atlanta region. You can find those posts at:

According to Realtor Magazine, Atlanta places 2nd in the US for largest average house size at 2,074 square feet (sf). Based on recent data from Yardi Matrix, an apartment market intelligence source, Atlanta also has the largest apartment sizes in the country, averaging over 974sf per apartment. Given the current ratio of single family to multifamily units and a city population of 463,878, we have an average of 590 square feet of housing space for every individual in the city of Atlanta. If we can increase spatial efficiency by just 25 square feet per person, we can create 20,723 units of affordable housing. . . just within the city limits.

These additional units would take the form of small multifamily dwellings, garage apartments, and co-housing both in existing single & multifamily dwellings as well as new structures. While the creation or modification of houses into duplexes would have obvious benefits to a landlord as well as reducing rents, the development or conversion of existing large homes into smaller condominiums could also create additional opportunities for increased affordable homeownership as well as higher profitability for owners and developers.